Monitor Network System Status With Traffic Lights & A Raspberry Pi

Many network administrators or systems operators who use the open-source OP5 network and application services monitoring software or anyone else that needs to monitor a particular system parameter will enjoy this project. Using a small Raspberry Pi along with a variety of scripts the status to be monitored can be filtered from the OP5 software, via the Raspberry Pi to a set of traffic lights, for example:

The hardware is very simple, considering the Raspberry Pi has GPIO ports that can be easily controlled. Therefore the only remaining interface is a simple relay circuit between the GPIO and the lights themselves. The only caveat is that you may be working with mains current with the traffic lights, so ensure the work is completed by a licensed electrician. And for the final product, watch the demonstration in the following video:

Even if you don’t use the monitoring software as the project author does, the tutorial is still a great look at controlling 230V devices using a Raspberry Pi. With the appropriate python script the lights could display email inbox status, twitter responses or even stock market alerts. So to get started check out the project page here: